


Follow the Leader

by BetterBeMeta



Series: Transformers Prime: Shattered Glass [1]
Category: Transformers: Prime, Transformers: Shattered Glass
Genre: An episode that never was, Gen, Leadership, Transformers Prime: Shattered Glass, Written in a teenage voice at times, in which Jack seems not to learn something but learns something of extreme contextual importance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 15:43:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4354757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BetterBeMeta/pseuds/BetterBeMeta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jack Darby unexpectedly gets a promotion at KO Burger, he can't shake the sense he doesn't deserve it and struggles to manage the responsibility. While unsympathetic, Megatron suggests he observe others in positions of command to conceive his own style of leadership. Things go wrong, however, when he catches a ride with Starscream for a routine energon survey and encounters a mysterious storm over the south Pacific Ocean, stranding him on a remote island with several grounded members of Starscream’s unit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Follow the Leader

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [More Than a Name](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2514203) by [suddenlycomics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suddenlycomics/pseuds/suddenlycomics). 
  * Inspired by [Delicate](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/128999) by Editoress. 
  * Inspired by [Talent](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/129002) by Editoress. 



> This fic was inspired by two friends of mine, Editoress and suddenlycomics, who together came up with this excellent Shattered Glass universe for TFP where Vehicons + Eradicons get to be just as important as the more central Decepticons in the main media property. The Seeker eradicons Helix and Circuit belong to them, respectively, and I am only borrowing them. Links to the works in which they originally appear are provided above.
> 
> This fic was intended to not only unite their works into a more cemented shared universe, but also to explore what an episode might really be like, should in an alternate universe this be the Transformers: Prime everybody might know and follow.

It wasn’t a _bad_ job, but the worst part of working at KO Burger was the voice. There wasn’t anything to be particularly excited about, when talking to customers. But Jack Darby had gotten the manager on his case before, sounding like a zombie on his first day. “Welcome to KO Burger, where every burger’s a knockout, can I take your order?” Jack said into the intercom, forcing a smile. You couldn’t sound pleasant enough without a smile.

The funny thing about saying that over and over is that it began to not even sound like a sentence or words. Just a string of sounds.

“Four Super Burgers, with large fries. Four diet cokes. You still got that special on chicken fingers? One of those. Thanks, kid.”

It was Lousy Chef. Or that was what Jack liked to call him. Every Thursday, Lousy Chef would roll up and order a four-person meal to bring home for his folks. Saying he didn’t know how to cook didn’t really have a basis, Jack thought, but it was as good a guess as any. You kind of met everybody in town this way. But not by their real names. By how they sounded and what they wanted over a tinny microphone.

There were only like, four restaurants in Jasper, Nevada. Everyone ended up at KO Burger on a weekday night, eventually.

“Okay, roll up to the counter.” The order materialized on the counter next to him. Jack had been working there for almost a year now, but he still almost never saw the drive-thru ‘cook.’ She didn’t speak. She was like a ghost. What was her name? Candy? Cookie? Taffy? Something like that. All Jack knew was that she was a grad student interning for Goldstar Solutions east of town, and that she didn’t have time for anything but her design thesis and flipping burgers to fund it.

Lousy Chef rolled up to get his junk food, and after a that’ll-be-twenty-five-fifty, he was gone. Lousy Chef drove a Dodge pickup. The payload didn’t look used. Whatever.

The drive-up buzzer went off. “Welcome to KO Burger, where every burger’s a knockout, can I take your order?”

Choking? Laughing. “Just great,” he mumbled, making sure his mic was off.

“Darby chunks with loserfries. Nerd weenie on the side,” said the voice that Jack knew was Vincent DeCole. More sniggering.

“Okay, roll up to the counter,” Jack said, setting his mouth. Show no emotion. Make it no fun. He wants a reaction, so don’t give him one. He got told this stuff for years: from mom, school counselors. Not that it ever really worked.

Vince pulled up in his Mustang. He’d gotten it re-detailed, or maybe it was just dark. The scratches from last week’s brush with Bumblebee looked gone. Jack pretended that Vince was invisible when he rolled down the window.

Your total is six-ninety-kiss-off-already.

“Your total is six-ninety-five,” he said.

“What, you aren’t gonna give me my order?” Vince laughed. “Out of toilet paper?”

“New policy,” Jack said coldly. "Pay first.”

“Whatever, I can own you for free,” Vince said, slammed up his window and drove off without taking out his wallet or waiting for the order on the counter. The cook what’s-her-name had interpreted “Darby chunks with loserfries” as chicken nuggets with small fries, with a sharpie-marker bag doodle flipping the bird. That was some solidarity at least, Jack thought. Vince stealing from KO Burger took the meal out of her paycheck, too.

“Hey, Jack,” said a voice from the kitchen.

“Uh, what?”

The cook appeared in the order window, her puffy hair pulled tightly back in a fishnet. She took off her greasy gloves and handed him an envelope. “Mail for you. Manager dropped by before you got in.”

“Thanks, uh…” Jack said, taking the envelope.

“Brandy. No big deal, not like we talk much.”

Jack turned the envelope over slowly, wincing where he bit his lip on where he almost said ‘I’m sorry.’ He slit the seal with the ruler he’d been using for his geometry homework and read the letter. He read the letter again. Jack Darby read the letter a third time.

“Is it bad?”

“No, nothing bad,” Jack replied, hardly believing what he was reading. “I got promoted to supervisor.”

The smile on Brandy’s dark face was indescribable. Jack remembered that she’d graduated college.

“Congratulations.” She then added as a bitter afterthought, “boss.”

\--

Cross-legged on the mesh grating, Jack Darby adjusted his book light. It was old and it ran on two AAs, but thankfully stuff like that didn’t get thrown out in his house. The last he’d used it was years ago under some covers, with _The Hobbit_. That edition with the big, glossy pictures.

Allegedly, Lord Megatron insisted the lights on the _Nemesis_ be kept low to conserve power. Squinting down at a paperback in the dark made homework slow.

“What is… _that_?”

Jack exhaled sharply, looking up from his highlighted passage to see Lord Megatron’s huge red optic. It wasn’t as if the mech could sneak up on anybody; he shook the bridge when he walked. But he could turn around quickly with surprising stealth. Jack Darby had to take a second to compose himself; no matter if it had been a month or two months since meeting the Decepticon leader, the sheer size of him still was pretty freaky. It helped that while on the bridge, humans were confined to the upper service catwalk and out from underfoot. It brought him up to face-to-face level. But talking to a giant face was only slightly easier than talking to a giant foot.

“Uh, homework.” It took a second for Jack to remember that such a term meant nothing to the person in front of him. “It’s studying from school, and you take it home. Then you do it, and bring it in tomorrow or whenever.”

“I see.” Then he squinted, one eye slitting, the opposite ‘eyebrow’ cocking up. If they were eyebrows. “You attend your studies for seven of your Earth ‘hours’, much of your waking time. Then you are expected to continue remotely.”

“Uh, yeah.”

Megatron gave a snort of derision. Jack didn’t like homework either, but he had no idea if he agreed with whatever Megatron thought of it. “It’s not so much today,” Jack added quickly. “Just have to read a chapter in a book and take notes.”

Jack didn’t really blame the mech for taking an interest in even the most boring things. He didn’t hang out too often by himself in the bridge like this, but it was pretty hard to not notice that Lord Megatron hated being idle. Yet, as leader of the Decepticons, there were long periods of silence. And waiting. For reports from Soundwave, from check-ins with various flight squadrons, for word concerning Energon mining, for the next Autobot attack. There was really nothing more intense than a restless, bored Megatron. He paced, grumbled, left to complete some work, returned and set it aside for Starscream, muttered to himself, left for a flight, returned from a flight, fidgeted in aggressive ways. Worst of all was when he just stood completely still, saying nothing. Jack had no idea what he was doing or thinking then, and didn’t really want to find out.

As it was, he kind of craned an optic to try and discern the book in Jack’s hands. “Catch-22, by Joseph Heller,” he said, holding up the cover more visibly. Lord Megatron was no good at asking for things. Other people asked _him_ for favors, not the other way around. “You know, I think you’d like it.”

“Perhaps,” said Megatron, with the feigned disinterest of a 30-ton panther. “You ought to go to your peers, rather than linger here with your studies.”

“Eh. Raf’s at the drive-in with Miko and Knock Out.” Jack shrugged. “Monster movies aren’t really my thing.”

It was a little eerie how Megatron was able to stare into him like that. “What troubles you?”

Looking out the forward bow viewing window, Jack saw the thick clouds drift serenely beneath him. He was probably on the other side of the world from home, he thought; there wasn’t much farther to go from his problems save blasting off into space.

“Nah,” Jack said. “Just some stuff at work. It’s not really that important.”

“You are not the judge of what I find relevant or ‘important,’” Megatron said firmly. “I assume it is not private.”

“No, nothing like that.” He grappled with the prospect of explaining himself to an intergalactic warlord. His voice was flat with worry. “Yesterday I got promoted to supervisor at KO Burger.”

Mostly, Megatron seemed unimpressed— but not scornful. Jack supposed he had worked a lot of different jobs in the past. Granted, being a part-time employee at a greasy spoon was not as bad as, like, literally being a slave in a mine.

“From your reaction, I assume you do not regard this as an achievement,” he said, equally deadpan.

Jack didn’t want to seem _ungrateful_. “It’s not like I get paid much more. I just don’t get why me. I don’t even work there full time, I’m 16, the cook— Brandy— has been working there longer than I have…”

“Regardless of your superior’s _motives_ ,” and Megatron said this with great distrust for the party of discussion, “you still must bear this duty’s responsibilities. For now.”

“So you think it’s weird, too?”

“Yes,” Megatron said simply. After a churning pause of consideration, “But it is an opportunity, so do not waste it.”

“I don’t even know how I’m going to do it at all,” Jack grumbled. He didn’t like spilling his guts, especially not to someone important like Megatron, but if the guy was insistent on hearing about it— adamant on it— there wasn’t much of a way to back out of it. “Brandy hates me now, and there’s a new kid there that’s like fourteen. He won’t be told what to do, and Vince showed up and mistook him for me… gave him a hard time. Ugh.”

‘Ugh’ seemed like a poor way to end the story. It seemed like such a pathetic series of complaints. Megatron had been juggling armies while dinosaurs still were around. “I shouldn’t bug you with it. It’s nothing next to what you deal with.”

“I am not a human on Earth.It is worthless to compare your life to mine, or rank it as beneath my own,” Megatron rumbled. “The inner workings of the Decepticon army would likely seem equally insubstantial to you, if you were told of them.”

“Sorry.”

“There is nothing to apologize for,” said Megatron. “I still cannot understand why you must endure this ‘Vince.’ He seems a pest worth eliminating.”

Jack wrung his hands and pushed them through his hair. “It’s not that simple,” he began. “You’d think he gets in trouble with half the stuff he does. Illegal street racing, vandalism, being a class-A jerk... But his family is rich. They own something in Las Vegas? They _fund_ the police. And half of Jasper.”

That complaint, from Megatron’s reaction to it, didn’t feel so petty. The resentment in the mech’s eyes suggested that corruption existed even on the other side of the galaxy. Not comforting if that was true, but nice that someone as great as Lord Megatron knew how he felt. Hopefully.

“So you have a powerful enemy,” said Megatron.

“I don’t want any trouble,” Jack said. “I just wish I knew what to do about work.”

Metal scars pressed together with Megatrons lips, tracing the paths of old injuries as he centered his thoughts, then turned away to the command consoles. Below, the flight staff, all vehicons, worked dutifully as he pulled up schedules and routes. Then he turned on his communications link. “Commander Starscream. Report to the bridge for orders. And bring accommodations for Jack Darby with you.”

It was always strange to hear Lord Megatron say his name, as if there was no surname but only one full title. “Wait, so I’m going to go with… _Starscream_?”

“He is idle, no doubt in absence of your friend Rafael,” Megatron said as if it was obvious. “You wish to learn the ways of a commander. I suggest you observe him and his leadership.”

Jack laughed nervously. “Yeah, uh… being a fighter jet probably isn’t much like working at a fast food chain.”

Megatron actually laughed at this idea. It was a short bark through irony, but it shook his massive shoulders before his mouth curled into a wide, shark-tooth grin. “It would be significantly more difficult to send Commander Starscream to your KO Burger,” he said. “But if that was possible, I would not miss it.”

\--

“Lord Megatron _really_ suggested that _I_ am his choice for leadership demonstration?”

It was always a little weird to be riding inside a robot alien, Jack thought. Starscream’s sharp voice seemed to come from all directions; several of the dials and displays in front of him even rising and falling with emphasis. Jack guessed they were useless to a pilot who wasn’t human, though he had no idea what any of the displays meant, and he wasn’t about to touch Starscream’s controls.

“Yeah,” Jack confirmed. “Someday, you want to lead the Decepticons, right? I guess Megatron’s letting you show off.”

Jack wasn’t sure how he could tell, but Starscream was absolutely giddy at the suggestion. “It’s nice to get a little appreciation now and again,” the mech said, unable to disguise his glee. “As I have heard you too have recently enjoyed.”

Soundwave back on the _Nemesis_ might have been in charge of communications and intelligence, but Starscream was the undisputed ruler of rumors. “It’s not really the same,” Jack said. “Megatron, he pretty much knows you and trusts you. The manager where I work visits from Reno. I met him like, once.”

“And this manager expects you to toil without the slightest bit of recognition?!”

“I get paid,” said Jack. “It’s only part-time. And I did get a promotion, not that I did anything special.”

“Then I would not trust this new title,” Starscream said with bitter concern. “If it’s no reward for hard work, then there must be another motive.”

“Megatron thinks so, too.”

“Of course he does. Great minds think alike.” Then, somewhat irritably at the reaction, “Why are you laughing?”

“No, no reason, nothing,” Jack said, choking on the comparison. “Just tell me about the leadership stuff.”

“Hmph! Well then, you see,” he paused, stumbling. “I have never actually considered an answer to this.”

“What?!”

“I am of course _naturally_ talented and suited to a position of command,” Starscream said. “As such, explaining the details is often... _below_ my concern.”

Jack crossed his arms, looking up and out the cockpit.  “Sounds like Megatron means to quiz you just as much as help me out.”

Starscream’s grumble vibrated the seat. “Hmgh… quite.”

“Coming up on the fault now, Commander,” said a voice over the communications feed. It was one of the five in the flight squadron, though Jack wasn’t sure which one. Superficially eradicons could sound very similar, though he’d been introduced to many distinct individuals. Some were easier to distinguish on the ground.

Starscream didn’t have such trouble. “Excellent, Helix. All units, form up to survey. I want a good visual at the very least, if we are forced to leave.”

Jack watched as the Seekers on either side pulled back and out of a tight V into a looser echelon, each just barely riding in the wake of the last. “Perhaps this is where the lesson begins,” Starscream said, almost to himself as if composing his point as he went along. “Note the position of those under my command.

It wasn’t exactly a subtle point to make; Starscream’s seekers rode on their leader’s upwash. Only the commander bore full drag force, thus the commander had to be the strongest flier to support those beside him. “Yeah, but I’m not a plane,” Jack said.

“There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, I’m sure.”

“Ok, whatever.” The wind outside beat Starscream’s cockpit. “What are we looking for, anyway?”

Starscream was concentrating intently on gathering the data, but multitasked well enough for an explanation. “A short time ago, Energon readings came in from this area of ocean. _My_ theory is that geological activity of your planet has lifted a mesospheric cache to the surface. The area is, as Raphael informed me, a _hotspot_ : the moving origin of a series of igneous islands.”

“So you’re scanning for Energon coughed up by a volcano,” Jack said.

“Simplistic, but yes. However! As Energon is highly reactive to heat and pressure, that it could persist below your planet’s crust is remarkable, requires further study, and is sure to be a significant advancement in my-”

“Commander, excuse me, do you hear something?”

Starscream didn’t even have time to say “No,” before _something_ happened. Jack was upside-down, Jack was falling, Jack was plummeting through the screaming cold air. The specially-engineered anti-g clip buzzed furiously on his safety harness, perhaps the only thing that had kept him from a horrible high-speed fate.

The ground whirled angrily below him, above him, below him, framed by thunderclouds that weren’t there only minutes before. A churning wind pushed Jack as he fell, away from the sea and to a fast-approaching green island. Jack felt himself be sick, but didn’t black out.

His parachute deployed automatically. Jack was still in shock of what had just happened that he almost lodged himself feet-first into a spiky tree. He ended up on the beach, instead.

Jack sat there and caught his breath, shaking. He was safe. Perfectly safe, as he’d been told he’d be. Cybertronian technology was incredible, and none of the gristly predictions that his woebegone Google search 'what if I was blasted out a jet’s cockpit' suggested had come true.

He was safe and alive.

Safe and alive, and stuck on some remote tropical island on the other side of the world. The parachute retracted, folding itself perfectly back into the small compartment on the back of his safety harness. Jack took a couple deep breaths and checked his phone.

Full battery, no signal. Of course.

Something large splashed down in the water nearby. Jack found his wobbly legs and hid behind a fallen log. One of the Seekers emerged from the sea, crawling on hands and knees out of six-foot crashing surf. Space robots didn’t really need to breathe or cough, but streams of seawater sputtered from several obscured vents. When they didn’t immediately stand, Jack jogged down the white sand to meet them. “Hey! Hey, you need help? Uh, if I can do anything?”

 ****“N-no, I’m fi… I’m fine—” the eradicon stammered, voice cracking in pitch. Jack blinked; were they damaged? They lifted their head and smacked the underside of their ‘neck’ a few times, emitting a dark frizz of static after each hit. “I’m sorry. I’m still recovering from vocal nanorestructuring,” they said in a much higher tone.

“That’s, uh, all right,” said Jack. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

“Red Skies. I’m Red Skies,” said the eradicon, finally standing. “Do you mind being picked up, human? One of these waves might knock you over and-”

“Sure. Sure, why not,” said Jack. “Let’s just get someplace safe.”

There was just no getting used to a giant alien robot picking you up. But Jack had gotten over that knee-jerk reaction to struggle; Megatron’s command that all Decepticons _ask_ first except in an emergency had helped. The cybertronians, while skeptical of humans’ organic makeup, had been surprisingly accommodating in regards to the size difference. Breakdown had tried to explain it; there had once been many Decepticons as small as Jack was. If any remained after the war, they were in hiding: perhaps in the wreckage where others could not go. But that was a thin hope.

At times, they had been picked up and carried, too. Jack supposed that Soundwave actually hardly ever put Laserbeak _down_.

Red Skies was more hesitant with Jack than most, but they hid under tree cover and began to walk along the perimeter of the island, the boy riding next to an unused tire. Tire? “Hey, uh, sorry if this is rude, but are you a car?”

“No, I’ve always been a flyer,” said Red Skies. “But I was stuck with a wrong alt mode for a long time. I almost couldn’t believe it when Commander Starscream went ahead and sponsored me for Seeker candidacy.”

“What happened?” Jack asked, “Look, I’ve never been ejected out a plane before, let alone a person who _is_ a plane. I didn’t see a thing.”

“Neither did I,” admitted Red Skies. She sounded troubled. “I was flying in formation, then… zap! I reverted, fell right out of the sky. I was hoping you saw what happened. At least to the Commander.”

“Nope. No signal, either.”

Red Skies looked up at the silent, swirling cyclone that surrounded the island, towering so high that only the smallest patch of blue could be seen above. “Scrap.”

\--

Far away, beyond the ocean, mountains, and the reach of rivers, an old mech stood monitoring his sensor equipment. Some of it was ancient. Some of it was brand new. Some of it was from Cybertron. Some of it had been appropriated from Boeing and Raytheon. But all of it belonged to the Autobots, and the Autobot cause.

Ratchet was one such Autobot. And the results that came alerting on his screen were his handiwork.

“Finally,” he said, a rough sigh of anticipation. “Optimus. We’ve got something on cache six. They took the bait.”

Optimus Prime approached. “I did not doubt you, old friend. What is the yield?”

“Initially? Five Decepticons. Two were likely destroyed in the discharge— Good riddance,” said Rachet. “The others, grounded. From their transmissions, it looks like Starscream and his Seekers. Now we have them at our leisure.”

“Starscream would make a valuable addition. Over time, it has become clear to me that his loyalties are far from absolute,” the Prime said. “If this is does not prove to be the case, there is time to pursue an alternate course of action.”

“I’d like that,” Ratchet said. Wry, bitter. Then he switched on communications. “Bulkhead, you know what to do.”

“Already on it.”

\--

“There’s someone up there,” Jack said, pointing through a rustling window in the leafy canopy. “Hey, I think that’s one of you!”

The gentle volcanic shield of the island foiled any attempts to get to higher ground. The island jungle clustered densely and rattled in the whipping winds,  but Red Skies bent a nearby palm out of the way to see. “It is,” she confirmed. “What are they doing?”

“You’d know better than me.”

“It’d be a stunt to fly past gale force conditions like this. Looks like they’re trying to get above the clouds.”

Up, up, the Seeker climbed until they were barely a speck against the postage-stamp of blue high above.

Something on the island, in the island, _whined_. Or, Jack didn’t know what to call it. The feedback of feeding a microphone into itself: tinny, but as if on the most enormous soundstage imaginable. Unlike lightning, the thunder came before the flash— a flash that was a bright magenta, nearly washing out the shadows.

The Seeker tumbled like they’d collided with a solid wall.

“What was that?!”

“Stay here.”

It wasn't exactly a smooth motion, but it was delicate to set Jack down on a smooth crop of rocks. Then Red Skies leaped into the air with two long strides, transformed loudly and blasted up into the sky. Jack shielded his eyes, feeling the hot backdraft push him and the swaying jungle. He watched as the femme drifted and wobbled in her path up, fighting the fierce gusts above the island. She passed her fellow Seeker, and with a careful stall turn, reversed direction into a tight dive. To Jack, the two distant specks joined, and rapidly began to approach. Red Skies pulled up, slowing the descent. Even with her efforts, there was little way to land without a plume of sand and a minor crater on the beach nearby.

By the time Jack caught up with them, they had gotten past basic injury checks and had begun arguing in the dunes.

“What were you thinking, Helix?! You’re lucky not to be a pile of shrapnel right now!”

“Frag off! Like I’m just going to sit here grounded while the Commander’s probably looking for us! I almost got high enough to get a signal out!”

“But you didn’t! You only just nearly wrecked yourself, and alerted every Autobot on this island to our position!”

“Hey! Hey, cut it out,” Jack interrupted, leaning on his knees and breathing hard from jogging. “We’re not, we’re not going to get off this island yelling at each other.”

Jack hadn’t really considered the consequences of making a couple of giant robots angry, but did immediately as both Seekers turned to him, red visors brimming with the words they weren’t saying. They were interrupted by the crack of broken foliage, crunches as trees broke under a staggering weight. Weapons were out faster than Jack could follow, Helix’s leg immediately between him and the approaching presence.

But the fight never came. Something big collapsed at the edge of the forest.

“Circuit! Primus, what happened to you?!”

\--

"Lord Megatron."

Starscream had slunk onto the bridge many times in his long operation. Many times it had been with purpose. And there were those few times of vanity, when Megatron himself was nowhere around. But this time was neither of those. This time was one of shame, of a discomforting lurch around his spark that he felt was the worst part of himself. Easily. If any parts of him were to be considered short of excellent.

The decepticon leader himself seemed to recognize that this was one of those times, too, but said nothing of it. Merely warped his brow.

"Your early return is not a comfort. What is it, Starscream?"

"There's been... A minor complication. Completely unforeseen. If it would not be too much trouble, I would request your, er..."

"Speak!"

"My mission was compromised. I barely made it back myself. At the recent objective... There is a cyclonic disturbance. Capable of disrupting an alt-mode even in the sky. Please, forgive me— if I had known I—"

"Your squadron. What became of them?"

"My lord, they are the among your finest. I am certain they made an emergency landing, or else were cushioned by Earth's liquid ocean."

"What of Jack Darby?"

"My lord, I—"

"Do not play this game with me, Starscream. Where is the human boy?"

Starscream felt his lubricant curdle. "I ejected him before my impromptu reversion could cause him harm. I assure you his safety harness worked to perfection. I designed it myself." He felt his voice box sputter. "So, if all that can be assumed, he survived."

Megatron stared down at the planet below, solemn as an asteroid. Then he turned, and Starscream knew better than to impede him. Not with that look in his eyes, that look that had risen armies and had leveled worlds. The look that Starscream himself envied more than almost anything.

"Soundwave. Prepare the groundbridge. Return Knock Out to us, bid him look after the Commander."

"I protest! It is my command that led to this situation! Allow me to show you my way out of it!"

"If you are found to be in good repair, then you may join this fray. But not before."

"My Lord!"

"Starscream! Today I risk losing valuable and loyal Deceptions and the respect of the humans as well. Do not add yourself to what I must now gamble."

"I obey," said Starscream.

\--

Circuit’s damage seemed largely superficial, save for mobility loss in his left leg. As far as Jack could tell, which didn’t turn out to be better than the two other Seekers could say.

“I take it back. Could’ve used Avi right about now,” Helix said, manually splinting Circuit’s limb the only way he knew how: with a palm trunk. “You can at least walk on it now?”

“Thanks,” said Circuit. “But walking is the least of our problems. We’re not going to get far with Bulkhead rolling around out here looking for us.”

“Wait, wait— who?” Jack asked. “Some Autobot?”

“One of the Wreckers,” said Red Skies. “I don’t think I have to explain what his job is.”

“Wrecking. Got it.” The boy paused. “Wait. He’s the one that Breakdown’s got a problem with?”

“Might be,” said Circuit. “Breakdown’s got a problem with any bot that goes around breaking legs, though.”

Jack thought that made sense. His stomach pinched. But unwrapping the candy bar in his pocket was more of a reminder that he’d missed dinner than anything else.  “So like… we’re stuck on a tropical island, Commander Starscream and one other Seeker’s missing, you can’t transform to fly away, and there’s an evil Autobot tearing up the jungle looking for us.”

“Pilot Light’s scrapped, not missing. I saw it,” said Helix. “Went down right into the mountainside. Smashed to bits, never had a chance.”

There was a moment of silence. It wasn’t something that anybody imposed, but Jack just saw it happen before him. The Eradicons bowed their heads, their optic visors dimmed slightly. Red Skies clasped her hands over her spark mournfully.

“I’m sorry. I wish I’d known them better,” said Jack after a short while. “But... “

“We’ve got to keep it together, yeah, yeah,” said Helix. “Look, I already had a plan! If I can just get a signal out—”

“No!” Red Skies shook. It was one of those Cybertronian postures Jack didn’t really have a guess for. Maybe it was nerves. “You almost ended up just like Pilot Light! That’s not going to work.”

“We might stay put. Wait for the Commander, or a rescue team,” suggested Circuit. “I’m going nowhere fast.”

“Great! We can toss you to Bulkhead as a distraction when we _run away_!” Helix said, voice rising a few decibels.

“Knock it off! Just...”

Jack felt very foolish, stepping between three enormous metal aliens. He didn’t know who to crane up to first.

“Just, listen. I didn’t mean to make it sound so bad. I’m a kid, okay? You’re all bigger, stronger than me,” he said. “You’re all fighters, heroes. You’re going to try to survive this, right?”

“Right,” said Red Skies.

“Then I, well, I sort of am counting on you guys. To pull through.” Jack swallowed the salt in his throat, an ugly lump made of words he choked down. The idea of _not_ making it through, mostly. “Look, I know Starscream isn’t here and he’s your boss. But we got to get our act together or something.”

“Kid’s got a point,” said Helix. “And that’s what I’ve been saying.”

“Uh, don’t take this the wrong way, but not really.” Jack said. “If getting a signal out didn't work, it didn’t work. We can’t control when or how fast help can come.”

“So let’s pretend it won't,” said Circuit. “The main problem is whatever kind of technology’s on this island. _That's_ what's jamming comms.”

“Yeah, but no fly on that,” Helix said.

“Maybe,” Red Skies said, “We don’t have to fly. The weapon they have… it must be on the ground somewhere. Could we destroy it?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jack said.

“Problem. There’s five of them. Or five installations I spotted on the beach while I was going down.” Helix said. “Could be more under cover.”

“Might not all be the weapon. They need something to keep up this cyclone, too.”

Jack thought. He thought of some things that felt like a reach, and he was almost too afraid to speak up. “You know, this is crazy? But if I was setting up a bug zapper that could reach anywhere above, I’d put it in the _middle_ of the island.”

\--

“So that’s the plan,” Red Skies said. “We kick this nest and hope a whole lot of scraplets come out?”

“It’s not my plan.”

Red Skies knew well that it wasn’t Helix’s plan. But she had to give the mech credit for at least giving it up. Maybe she’d been too rough on him. She hadn’t seen Pilot Light…

No. Focus. Objective. You’ve been a Seeker for half a stellar cycle. Act it.

The tower on the north beach, one of the five that Helix had seen, was bigger up close. From the air, she’d hardly noticed it; its accreted material the same color as the lime sand. Possibly repurposed construction pipe? Looked like human stuff.

“Let’s get this over with. Standing so close to this thing makes me feel like I’m going to lose a bolt.”

It did vibrate unpleasantly. Red Skies could feel the pressure change as she approached, the tiny pricks of beach rocks rattling around her pedes. It was hard to get good traction.

“Okay,” she said. Then she swung as hard as she was able at the concrete stem. The impact jarred her kinematics, scraped bright streaks into her fingers. A fracture appeared, a loud crunch.

The top leaned lopsided. Red Skies punched again, this time smashing through the pipe full-fisted. The rumbling stopped, though Helix grabbed her from behind to sweep her out of the way of the chunks of debris falling from above.

“Fragging—! I didn’t mean just full-force scrap the thing!” He stared at the white streaks over her finish.

“You said to get it over with. Now we wait.”

And they waited.

And they waited.

And when Bulkhead finally showed,

“Now we fight.”

\--

“You think they’ll be okay?"

Jack made note to find some gloves— yeah, motorcycle gloves, or something. A big old basalt floe wasn’t exactly great for the hands. He quickly went through a list of stories to tell his Mom, but they all sounded pretty weak compared to ‘I free-climbed a volcano on the other side of the world.’

“Helix’s been a Seeker for sweeps. He can handle himself,” Circuit said. “Red Skies… well. You didn’t hear it from me, but I think she used to be ground assault.”

Crippled as he was, Circuit could manage only a slow walk up the igneous terrain. Jack could keep pace with him at least.

“Splitting up’s a terrible idea,” Jack said. “That’s always when some creep comes after you. Sure wish I'd taken horror movies at the drive-in right about now.”

“Forming teams was your idea, though.”

“Yeah. I know.” Jack mumbled. “I’m just… hindsight. It made sense at the time. Four of us, only one of Bulkhead. He can’t be in two places at once, right?”

Circuit thought. “Not without some serious help, no,” he said.

Jack realized.

“Hey… you escaped from him. How’d you do it?”

Jack also realized this might have been a bad thing to ask. Circuit paused uncomfortably, winced as he heaved his splinted leg over a bubbled outcrop. “I played the wreck,” he said shamefully.

“You did what you had to,” Jack said. “I mean, you’re here, right?”

“That’s true,” Circuit said darkly. “It made sense at the time, too. Autobots wouldn’t check my vitals, not after they disabled me. I’m not really… important to them.”

They finally mounted the lip of the dormant caldera, the weathered bowl dipping down into sand and trampled growth. A huge structure was installed within, shadowed from view by any angle but the midday sun.

“That seems like an oversight,” Circuit said quietly. “We could have approached at low altitude and it never would have locked on.”

Jack winced as he placed his hands on the searingly hot rocks again, swung his legs over and began sliding down into the basin. “Looks like someone expected to catch planes.”

Together, they approached the weapon, a utilitarian-looking cannonlike setup. Beyond the installation it sat atop, the functional part wasn’t particularly large, only a few times the size of Circuit himself and only a fraction of the Nemesis’s scale. To Jack, though, it loomed.

“You’re a mechanic. Sort of. Can you do anything with that?”

“The sooner we can fly, the less danger the others’ll be in,” said Circuit, lifting Jack onto the console’s surface. “I’ll give it a shot.”

And, Jack had watched plenty of people scowl over computers. His mom, before she could figure out her e-mail. Raf, when doing some kind of programming challenge for smart kids. Miko sometimes, when her phone had to reboot. Soundwave, like, once— but who knew what to call a scowl on Soundwave. But Circuit just had that ‘get this done or else we die’ thing about him.

“No good. The weapon can't be disabled from here. This is the communications jammer, and I'm locked out," Circuit said. "We’re doing this the hard way."

"Wait, the weapon's here, but the computer for it isn't?"

"There _is_ no computer for it. It's distributed to a network of sensors around the island, looks like." Circuit selected an appropriate tool and transformed his hand to take apart the machine's casing. "But maybe I can crash the atmospheric disruption system.”

After removing the access panel, halfway through rooting in the electronic guts of the interface, Jack stood up and watched the screen go dark. But the the cannon above didn’t slump, or lose its lock on the sky. The clouds, though, began to clear and the whipping gale quieted to a murmur, punctuated by a dull rumble.

“Hey, I don’t think that’s the weather?”

“I’m working on it.”

“No,” Jack said. “I’m hearing something, and I don’t think it’s the wind.”

“Bulkhead?”

“No, it’s—”

Jack could place the noise just as soon as he saw the motorcycle leap over the caldera’s edge. No, no how could he forget? How everything had started? With what she called a joy ride?

“It’s Arcee!”

“What?! Scrap!”

“Just try and finish! You’ve got this?”

Jack could only yell as Circuit picked him up around the middle, quickly stuffed him down into the open side of the console and leaned the panel up closed again. Then, in the dark tangled in wires. He pushed against the sheet metal, but it didn’t budge. Then it fell open again when Circuit’s foot moved away, as Arcee threw him off the console platform.

The first obvious instinct was to hide, maybe drop an F-bomb or two. But, no. Cool it, Jack. Cool it, because you’re stuck on an island with evil robots and your friends are hurt and stranded and separated under attack, someone is dead, and it’s _your_ fault, _you_ , _you_ just had to hang around Megatron and _you_ , _you’re_ responsible and without you _none_ of this would have happened and—

No.

Cool it.

You could think about “me” forever. Now there’s a “we” and that’s more important. You’re a Decepticon here, Jack Darby. What are you going to do?

“Stop the Autobots, save Circuit,” Jack mumbled. He took hold of a thick coil of cable in two hands and yanked it right out of its plug. Ripping fistfuls of wires out by the root, the hum of machinery quieted enough for Jack to hear the battle outside. Tripping over the loose ends, he stumbled over to the platform railing.

Circuit was doing well surviving. He’d stalled, maybe, but he was down his bad leg again and now only had one functional arm blaster to match. Arcee circled like a thin blue shark, wearing the vehicon down in between interrogation and shots.

“Where is Starscream?”

“I don’t know!”

“I won’t ask you again, generic! Where is your Commander?”

“I’d never tell you!”

“Then you’re not that useful, are you?”

Jack threw the spare coupling in his right hand. _plong_. Right on the back of Arcee’s glossy helm.

“Hey! Hey you!” Jack yelled. “Leave him alone!”

Arcee froze. She turned with that unmistakable air of I-don’t-believe this, the same kind of bullcrap Vince took the only time Jack had ever hit back. Circuit took the moment and tried to blast her from behind; Arcee laid him flat with a swift kick. She wasn’t even looking. No, she was fixed on him.

Jack turned and ran, every built-up alert and text from his mom suddenly hitting his cell phone at once.

\--

In theory, the plan was going great. Red Skies expelled about a quart of sand from her subventilation, tearing up the beach where she ran directly at the Autobot Bulkhead. Her shots scattered on the mech’s thick armor like carbonfall, and when her body impacted there wasn’t half the force she expected.

She remembered she was lighter now. It felt good, right, but at times she could forget what had been worth it to lose.

Still, it got Bulkhead to drop Helix. If only to backhand her ten meters overground. The surf scraped against her pedes, sucking in undertow.

“You seekers aren’t so tough stuck on the ground,” Bulkhead yelled. “One of us is gonna get tired, and it’s not gonna be me!”

But they’d stalled Bulkhead for 15 kliks already. And a Seeker worked as long as they _had_ to.

Didn’t help that the mech was _right_.

Though, as she leaped back to Helix’s defense, communications suddenly cut back on.

 ****_“Helix! Red Skies! Out of my way! Now!”_

So much— almost too much— happened at once. Helix dove over her, pushing her to the beach. The Commander streaked barely overhead, a sudden silver missile. Bulkhead flew into the air, impact sweeping even the heavy mech off his feet. Commander Starscream transformed, planted one heel spur on Bulkhead’s face and flipped elegantly on the rebound, slamming the enemy into a scored ditch. The decepticon slid himself, slender pedes digging deeply into the soft sand.

 ****“Go! Disable the other sensor nodes,” Starscream ordered, drawing his own weapons. Then, at their sparkbeat of confusion, “The pylons! Approach low.”

“Yes, Commander!”

Red Skies pushed Helix up and off. One step, two steps, and soon in flight: separated from her commander almost as quickly as they’d reunited.

...

   ....

       .....

“Good,” Starscream said, blasters fixed on Bulkhead where that mech dug himself out of the sand. “They’re gone.”

“What? You don’t think I’m gonna chase ‘em?”

Starscream snorted. “Of course not. I’m a much more attractive target to you, Autobot.”

His aim moved from chassis to helm when Bulkhead laughed, deployed his arm-mounted wrecking hammer.

“You’re a real pain in the aft, but you know what I hate most about you?”  He swung. “When you’re right!”

Starscream ducked under it, his actions digging deep cuts into the grey surf. The shots he placed were warning only. Such toying only enraged the Autobot, made him bear down harder, crash reckless blows into the concrete monolith’s remains.

“Quit stalling! You know you’re going to get hit eventually!” Bulkhead said. “You stand down, and I can take you to Optimus without breaking your skinny arms.”

“Stalling, am I? My, whoever could of have thought of such a brilliant plan?”

“Enough!”

Starscream alighted atop the ruined tower, holding his fire. “What will happen if you actually catch me, I wonder? Will your esteemed leader give you the appreciation you deserve? A promotion? A possibility to retire in happiness, perhaps?”

Bulkhead brought his hammer down, but its velocity slowed. Hesitated, even, before it could hit Starscream’s perch.

“No, you and I both know the answer,” Starscream said. “Everything will go on as before. You will continue to be used. And eventually, you will be used up.”

When Bulkhead looked up, there was a flicker of fear in his optics.

“It doesn’t sound very _fair_ to _me_ ,” Starscream said, offhandedly.

“Argh!”

Bulkhead shattered the mold-cast base in an explosion of lime and gravel.

“You’re trying to confuse me! I’m not falling for it, Decepticon!”

As Starscream fell, Bulkhead got off one good shot, one shot that looked as if it would have clipped the Decepticon’s wing. But at the last moment, Starscream flipped helm-over-pedes, and again evaded fire. Bulkhead’s roar of frustration was rivaled only by an island-wide screech of feedback, building higher until it burst into ugly silence.

“You fell for it long enough,” Starscream said. “My Seekers have dealt with your device. In moments, the Decepticon army will be here to deal with you in turn.”

He smirked.

“That is, if you would prefer to _stay_.”

Bulkhead fled, furious, into the cover of the jungle. And, when he was out of sight, Starscream in his disobedience allowed himself to slump, to relax his own battered parts, and to wince where he’d stressed his untreated injuries.

\--

Believe or not, Jack Darby was actually better over the craggy, bouldered terrain than Arcee was. There was no way that she could surmount the rocks in her speediest form, and the footing was so crumbling-loose that her weight caused her to slide down half as much as she climbed. Jack felt like a monkey, or a squirrel, or another one of those critters that they had outside of Jasper, Nevada.

Only, soon there was nowhere else to go but down, the other side of the caldera’s lip. Jack gasped hard, looking back. Arcee was gaining. And he didn’t have to think too hard to imagine that if he ran down the hill, she had momentum and _wheels_ to finally catch him.

But every second that Arcee was chasing him was another second that Circuit could get away, right?

Jack Darby ran out of seconds.

“OK, kid. You’re a lot of trouble, I’ll give you that,” Arcee said. “But you’re through here.”

“You don’t even need me for anything,” Jack said, stepping backward. Only moldy stone, caked ash. “I’m not important.”

Show no emotion. Make it no fun.

“Right, but the Decepticons think you are. Enough to send you here,” said Arcee. “How’s this? You come with me, and I don’t have to force you to.”

She added, after Jack stood firm, “It would be _very_ easy for me to force you to.”

She wants your reaction, so don’t give her one. That advice had always seemed bad, but never before had it just been so… _useless_. So totally not important, so obvious to just throw out the window and never give a crap about it again.

“I know what it’s like to be pushed around,” Jack said. “I’m done with people like you.”

“Don’t make it hard, kid. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

Jack clenched his fists, determined to keep Arcee talking as long as he could. “Do you know what you sound like? Is that what the Autobots stand for, talking down to people who’re weaker, telling them they know better?” Jack said. “Bad news for you: we don’t like that on planet Earth.”

“It’s not about what you like,” said Arcee, advancing to snatch him from the ground. “I’ve got bigger things to worry about than you.”

That was when the volcano erupted.

Or, that’s what it felt like for a second, while Jack’s bones were still vibrating, laid flat by the incredible impact of _something_ right in front of him. He coughed in the dust, squinting up at the enormous figure that had touched down between him and Arcee.

“Yes. You _do_ have reason to worry,” said Megatron, in his voice that felt like the burning coals of an ancient world.

Arcee aimed her weapon. Megatron aimed his own. It was impossible to see the mech’s face, so high above, but his posture was calm, still. Even unsettling in how composed it was, for a being so massive.

“I am in no mood to trifle with, Autobot. Leave this place, or I will destroy you.”

There was the sound, the smell of ozone, of Megatron arming his fusion cannon.

“If the human has been harmed, I may destroy you anyway.”

Jack saw Arcee hesitate, step back, blasters still up. Then she fired between Megatron’s legs, striking the ground and crumbling the cliff under Jack Darby. The world tumbled, this time too shallow for a parachute, down into the volcano’s yawning valley.

Megatron’s hand was larger than Jack’s whole body, but the human boy grasped the mech’s fingers where they sifted him from the shower of flying basalt. But by the time Megatron turned him right-side over in his giant palm, Arcee had taken her moment and was gone.

Jack felt like a hamster— another one of those animals they had outside Jasper, Nevada— as  Megatron lifted him up to see eye-to-optic.

“I’m okay, I think. Mostly,” he said. “No destroying?”

“Against my better judgement,” said Megatron.

\--

Jack Darby was draining french fries. Technically, he was also supervising. Being the Supervisor on duty. But the job was really mostly just making more french fries and refilling the Icee machine. It wasn’t like he had to really care too much when Brandy clocked in, and the new kid showed up on time mostly.

Sometime around 4:30 PM, the back door bell rang again. Which was different: only four or five people had the key, and most of them were working. Jack straightened his dumb hat, his nametag, and wiped his hands on his apron just in case.

Yeah, it was the manager. All the way from Reno, too.

“Hey, you’re Jack, right? Nice to see you again,” he said. “Haven’t caught you since, what, August?”

Which was when he was hired, so that was right at least.

“Yes, sir,” Jack said. “What can I, uh, do for you?”

“Just dropping by, you know. How are you liking your new position?

Jack thought. “Uh, it’s okay,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s for me.”

“What? Don’t worry about it, you’ll get over your nerves about it.”

“No, that’s not it,” Jack said. “I just think… Brandy deserves it more than me. She’s older than me, has been here longer than me, she went to college, and she works really hard.”

Hopefully, the manager wouldn’t get too mad. It was a good argument, Jack thought. It was hard to rock the boat. But sometimes, you had to. To do the right thing, kind of.

“I get where you’re coming from, Jack, but I can’t promote someone like Brandy. You know…”

“Not really, sir,” said Jack. “Why not?”

“She’s just not a good fit. She doesn’t fit in,” said the manager, who was white, which was what Jack suddenly realized was the problem.

“Brandy fits in better than anybody else I’ve ever seen,” Jack said. “I didn’t even have to talk to her, for months, she does things so well and without even being asked to. She fixes tons of stuff when I’m not even looking. Without her, KO Burger wouldn’t run.”

“I still think you’re a better fit for the responsibility,” said the manager firmly.

“Why?”

And when the manager didn’t have a reason, Jack knew why. And it was a gross _why_ , one of the worst possible ones and absolutely not right at all.

“Sir, I want to work at KO Burger, I really do,” Jack said. “But I think this is unfair, and if the only reason I’m the supervisor is because I'm not black, I don't think I want that job.”

The manager had to get a hold of his loss for words. He looked like he hadn’t expected the rock he hid under to be turned. Or like if there was a class of people to argue with him, Jack wasn’t one of them. For a second, Jack assumed the worst. The pizza shop was hiring now, he thought offhandedly. You know, just in case.

“Fine. Fine, you twisted my arm, kid. You’re demoted. Brandy’s promoted. Still don’t know why you’d let go of the extra dollar per hour,” the manager said. “You know, I like you though. You make a good case, and you’re humble. The reason you don’t want the job is the reason you should have it.”

“No,” Jack said. “No, I really think the person who deserves it does.”

**Author's Note:**

> As an afternote, I want to make perfectly clear that the Seeker eradicon of my own design, Red Skies, is not only trans-mode (she is a plane that was stuck with the chassis of a car) but also a transgender woman— because all vehicons and eradicons were coded male in the show (the "Steve" phenomeon), it is reasonable to assume those among them who aren't have been assigned masculinity wrongly, and might seek to correct that.


End file.
